Wednesday, 4 November 2009

To whome this victory: Hussain Al-Shahrisntani or Big Oil?

Unlike his previous public appearances, Iraq's Oil Minister Hussain Al-Shahristani on Tuesday was happy and friendly and never complained when local and foreign reporters circled and rained him with questions, but even I had the feeling that he was ready to talk for hours about his last achievement, the biggest in Iraq's history.

Yes, it is a victory for Al-Shahritsnai to bring UK's BP and China's CNPC to develop Iraq's biggest oil field, the 17.8-billion-barrel Rumaila, with these companies' money and according to the Iraqi terms. And even he promised that more such deals will see the light in the coming days.

Analysts say Big Oil accepted Iraqi low fees only to set foot in this country and then they will have more lucrative deals in the future. But what would happen if they find Al-Shahristani again in office in the next government? Would be any chance for any lucrative deals in the future after signing such deals now?

“We called it our Berlin Wall,” said Saad Khalef, 41, told The NYT on March 6 story as he surveyed the newly uncovered ground where the walls had stood, as crushed and pale as the skin beneath a bandage. “Now we can breathe easy. Yesterday, I felt a breeze coming through, I swear to God.”The NYT's Anthony Shadid in a piece on Jan. 6, 2011 two days after Muqtada Al-Sadr's return from nearly four-year self-imposed exile in Iraq: In 2004, an American spokesman in Baghdad called Mr. Sadr “a two-bit thug.” On Wednesday, the State Department spokesman, Philip J. Crowley, called him “the leader of an Iraqi political party that won a number of seats in the March 2010 election.”